Cinema Quarterly (1934 - 1935)

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In Copperfield it is the quality of the characterisation almost as much as the carefully elaborated period detail which recreates the spirit of coaching England as Dickens embalmed it in the novel. One can almost smell the aroma of harness and cold mutton. Two interesting results of the Dickensian cycle may be noted. The Dickens films have imposed on producers a modification of their policy of considering the star first and the " vehicle" afterwards. Once cannot tailor a Dickensian role to fit a particular star. The search for suitable types has brought fresh talent to the cinema — Henry Hull, Elaine Benson, Hay Petrie, and Freddie Bartholomew. The second result has been the realisation that sex is not the only box-office magnet : that a good warm feeling of happiness, such as pervades Copperfield, can always be relied on to pack 'em in. It will be reckoned one of the main achievements of the producers of Dickensian films that, accidentally or not, they proved the cash value of happiness. Campbell Nairne. SANDERS OF THE RIVER. Production: London Films. Direction: %pltan Korda. Photography: Osmond Borrodaile, Georges Perinal, Bernard Browne. With Paul Robeson, Leslie Banks, Nina Mae McKinney. Sanders follows the movie tradition set by Trader Horn. Here are the same old Murchison Falls as a background to palaver and wardance (those Murchison Falls to which conducted tours from nearby Kampala and En Tebbe are weekly affairs), the same eagerly snatched chances for black nudity, almost the same old friendly faces of the local tribes. What else did you expect? A unit in Uganda with, I suspect, no script that mattered. A bright idea: Robeson. Corollary: Nina Mae. Weeks and weeks of Africa built at Shepperton and Elstree (they forgot the clouds were different) and negros dug from agents' files and cafe-bars. Later, much later, some hints thrown out by Bengal Lancer. It's Jubilee Year as well. So this is Africa, ladies and gentlemen, wild, untamed Africa before your very eyes, where the white man rules by kindness and the Union Jack means peace. You may, like me, feel embarrassed for Robeson. To portray on the public screen your own race as a smiling but cunning rogue, as clay in a woman's hands (especially when she is of the sophisticated American brand), as toady to the white man, is no small feat. With Wimperis' lyrics of stabbing and killing, with a little son to hoist around, with a hearthrug round his loins, a medallion on his navel, and a plaster fo est through which to stalk, what more could Robeson do, save not a pear at all? For the others, they do not matter. Just one mon nt in this film lives. Those aeroplane scenes of 175